Applications Systems

Decide between agent vs. agentless polling methods when configuring SAM application monitor templates and application monitors

This article describes the difference between the Preferred Polling Method options in the Advanced section of the Edit Application Monitor page when configuring application monitor templates and application monitors in SolarWinds SAM. Learn about agent vs. agentless polling.

First published date

11/29/2018 10:52 PM

Last published date

1/16/2023 3:52 PM

Overview

This article describes the difference between agent and agentless when selecting a Preferred Polling Method in the  Advanced section when editing either an application monitor template or a specific application monitor assigned to a node. 

Related documentation topics include:

Product section

Server Application Monitor

Cause

N/A

Resolution

The following points apply to SAM application monitors, as well as other features such as Hardware Health .
  • Agent: 
    • Generally, agents provide richer data streams while adding load to the application.
    • SAM will try to leverage the same agent to perform the application polling.
    • If you are not monitoring the parent node with an agent, SAM automatically polls this application as agentless (Even if it shows Agent selected).
  • Agentless
    • SAM ignores the agent polling setting, and uses the specific monitor's preferred way of polling (WMI, RPC, etc..).
    • SAM can only pull limited data (based on the API and security access permissions) but can isolate the load to an external resource and do not impact the application as severely.


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